Touch of Life
by harry-ron-hermione-fan-101
Summary: At this very moment, in the town of San Angel, Manolo Sanchez the Guitarrista was 19 years, 5 months, 12 days, 19 hours, and 43 minutes old. Manolo the Guitarrista had an odd gift; with one touch he could bring life to dead things- but a second touch left them dead again, forever. /Book of Life Pushing Daisies AU. Originally posted on Tumblr.


_**A/N: This came about from the fact that I watched Book of Life and a bunch of Pushing Daisies episodes back to back to each other and the thought of, "hmmm.. what if...?" crossed my mind. Since this is borrowing elements of Pushing Daisies more than actually crossing over with it, I have it listed as a regular Book of Life fanfic, but if you think it'd be more appropriate to have it labeled as a crossover, let me know and I'll make the changes =) I do intend to finish this sometime, but we'll see. For now, it'll be listed as incomplete just in case I ever do get the urge to finish it**_

At this very moment, in the town of San Angel, Carmen Sanchez was 24 years, 33 weeks, 2 days, 6 hours and 48 minutes old. And not a minute older. For at this very moment, Carmen was dying to protect her son Manolo. Literally.

The bandit's attack on the small town had been sudden and vicious. Carmen had hidden the young Manolo (aged 6 years, 21 weeks, 1 day and 29 minutes) behind the barrels of fruit in the market. She had hoped he would be safe there while she found her husband, so that the small family might escape the town before any of them got hurt. But that's not what happened.

"Stay here, mijo. I'll be back with your father and we'll get to safety." Carmen shifted a few of the barrels to better hide the boy. She turned to run into the fight that spanned across the entire town, only to be run through with the blade of a bandit who just happened to spot her at the wrong time.

The murderer had already left the scene by the time Carmen fell to the ground, dead.

From behind the barrels and crates of fruit, two brown eyes blinked in confusion and fear. Young Manolo crept out from his hiding spot, eyes fixed on the pool of blood that poured from his mamá.

This was the first time in his life that Manolo Sanchez encountered death. The small boy knelt beside his still, pale mother. He didn't understand why she didn't move– was she sleeping? What an odd time for a nap, he supposed. As children tend to do, he decided to wake his mother, so that she could care for him; the fighting around him was scaring him, and he wished for comfort.

"Mamá? Please, wake up." He shook her gently, and almost didn't notice the little flame, the little spark of life, that jumped from his fingertip and to her skin. But he did notice it, and found it very peculiar– he took note to ask his mother once she was alright.

Carmen awoke, sitting up gingerly, her hand going to the gaping wound in her side. She blinked at it, not understanding. She had been in pain, and then felt nothing– she was sure she had been dying a moment ago. A nearby, terrified whimper brought her attention from her odd resurrection and back to her son.

"Manolo?" she said, still dazed and confused. She vaguely too note of the blood on the ground around them, soaking into their clothes. "Are you alright?"

"I'm scared, Mamá," he said, flinching at a nearby explosion. "Please, can we go home?"

Carmen's mothering instinct kicked in, and she nodded, determined to get her son out of the battleground and to safety. She hoped to find Carlos and his grandmother along the way, so that the whole family could be safe and together. "Come, Manolo, we must move quickly." She got to her feet, and reached out to pull her son closer to her side.

The moment she lay hands on him, the spark of life left her; the paleness of death returned, her breath stopped, her heart stopped, and she crumpled to the ground in a heap. Dead. Again.

"Mamá!" Manolo cried. Inexperienced with death as he was, he could tell that this was not a good thing. He scrambled across the bloody ground, feet slipping on the slick stone, to sit at her side. Seeing as it had worked before, Manolo again asked his mother to wake, and when she did not respond, he gently shook her. There was no repeat miracle or life jumping from him to and restoring her. Carmen was gone.

It was around this time that Carlos, who had been looking for his wife and son, happened upon the still body of Carmen and the still alive although very scared Manolo.

"No…." was all he could say as he approached, not wanting to believe what he saw. At his father's voice, Manolo turned to his dad, terrified and confused tears swimming in his eyes.

"Papá, something's wrong with Mamá," Manolo started, running to his father and hugging his leg. "She won't wake up anymore," he whispered to his father's kneecap. Manolo was worried he had done something wrong, in that he had woken her the first time, but not the second time.

Carlos said nothing, simply dropping to his knees beside his wife's body, and holding Manolo close while Manolo hid his face in his dad's shoulder.

The battle ended soon after; whether it was the soldiers succeeding in finally driving the bandits away, or that the villains had caused all the chaos and destruction they had wanted, Carlos and Manolo and most of the town didn't care. The citizens of San Angel emerged from their hiding places to care for their wounded and to mourn their dead. That was the time when Carlos explained to Manolo what death was and that his mother was gone. It was also the time that Manolo tried to explain that she had been dead and had come back when he called before dying again. Carlos didn't understand what Manolo was trying to tell him and just assumed that Carmen had used her last bit of strength to try to be– or at least appear to be– fine for Manolo's sake.

That night after he had been tucked into bed so that his father could mourn in private, Manolo stared at his hands, remembering the little spark that had woken his mother.

From the way his father talked of her being gone until they joined her in the afterlife and how he didn't understand what Manolo meant when he explained that she died twice, Manolo came to the conclusion that his mother waking at his touch was an unusual event. It would be a while, however, until Manolo discovered just how unusual of an event it was, exactly.

Several revolutions of the Earth around the sun later, and Manolo was still a young boy, but was now 9 years, 13 weeks, 5 days, 7 hours and 53 minutes old. He had encountered death and the dead several times over the course of the past couple years, and had learned about and experienced a few things with his odd touch.

In the week following his mother's death, Manolo had become a vegetarian, unable to handle the horrid and somewhat terrifying results of meat coming into contact with him via his mouth. His father thought he was being overly sensitive and that a true Sanchez would eat food from all four food groups, but Manolo insisted he no longer wanted anything to do with eating meat. Carlos chalked it up to a side effect, a trauma, of Manolo being present as his mother's death, which was, in some ways, partially true.

Over time, Manolo had learned that if his great grandmother's flower garden died, a touch of his finger would bring them all back to life, but he could never touch the flowers again, or they would shrivel and whither immediately. This held true for leaves and plants and gardens of all sorts. Manolo had discovered this while playing with his dear friends Maria and Joaquin. One autumn day, Joaquin had spent an entire afternoon gathering all the leaves he could, in order to make a leaf pile for himself, Maria and Manolo to play in. It was around dusk when he deemed the pile big enough to play in. As soon as Manolo jumped into the pile, the leaves burst into life and color; it went mostly unnoticed due to the fact that light was quickly fading, and Manolo was quick to thrash around in the pile to touch as many leaves as he could, returning them to their dry and crunchy state. Joaquin was oblivious to the event, but Maria….Maria might have seen the life return to the leaves at Manolo's touch and then back again, or maybe she didn't. Maria didn't know what she saw, and Manolo didn't know if she did see, so both of them pretended she didn't for the sake of not knowing if she should have.

The biggest thing the young boy learned about his gift was just that; it was a gift. It wasn't picked out by him, it wasn't something he had asked for or wanted. It was simply given to him and he had no warranty or exchange policy with it. He had it and whoever gave it didn't even think to give him an instruction manual with it.

And at this very moment, still in San Angel, Manolo was about to learn another Rule of the Touch. And, one might argue that this was the most important rule of them all.

You see, young Manolo was in love. Her name was Maria and she was mentioned just a few paragraphs ago. She was a year younger than Manolo, and in his eyes, better in every way. She was smart and clever, caring and kind, fun and never let anyone push her around or tell her what to do. She was beautiful and his best friend, and he was convinced that they were going to marry each other someday.

At the same time, Manolo and Maria's other best friend Joaquin, who was also mentioned a few paragraphs ago, also loved Maria. Joaquin was 2 years older than Maria, and thought she was pretty much as cool as he was. He loved her for many of the reasons that Manolo loved her, and he too was convinced that he would marry Maria one day.

Though they both loved the same girl, the boys were different people, and as such, they loved differently. They both knew, or least knew that the other knew, about their feelings. But, being young and optimistic for all things the future held, they both stayed hopeful that they would be the one to win Maria over.

The day started as many tend to do; the three amigos were running around, playing pretend and waving toy swords at imaginary foes. That is, until Maria encountered a foe that was not imaginary.

Young Maria, who was a lover of all things living, pulled to a stop in the middle of the street, her attention caught by what was the cutest pig she had ever laid eyes on. She also happened to lay eyes on the building that the pig was fenced in beside, and the man inside the building, who just so happened to be the butcher in the butcher shop, preparing to butcher the incredibly cute pig. And that is when her imaginary fight against an imaginary foe became a real one.

"Oh no. Not on my watch." Turning to the boys, Maria pointed to the penned in pig and other animals with her sword. "We have to free the animals!"

Manolo was all for this plan and eagerly agreed; Joaquin was a little more hesitant. But, before he could speak any concerns he might have had, Maria swung her sword high and brought it down on the fence's padlock.

There aren't words to describe the ensuing chaos of the freed animals stampeding the streets. The children ran with them, Maria leading the way on the back of a particularly large pig.

During the events of the stampede, several events happened very quickly; Joaquin rescued Maria's father who was in the path of a large, angry boar (and discovered he had his own special gift with death– or rather, not dying); Manolo saved some nuns who were also in the way of the large angry boar; and Manolo found out the most important rule of his Touch of Life. See, it was something he would never have figured out from bringing plants to life, and this is how he found out.

At the end of the stampede, the end of the mock bullfight with the boar, General Posada, dazed from the boar's attack, awoke to the damage and destruction that had been caused by his daughter. While he called angrily for Maria, Manolo, victorious from his boar fight, was on his way to defend Maria's actions and hopefully keep her out of trouble. But, at the sight of a pale, pink, unmoving body, Manolo froze, eyes wide.

The pig, for which all of this had been for, was dead; it had been trampled in the stampede.

Manolo approached the little battered body slowly, thinking quickly. He didn't want Maria to see it; if she did, he wasn't sure if he'd be brave enough to bring it back to life in front of her. And, if he did bring it back to life, he'd have to be careful to never touch the pig again, or it would be dead for good.

There never actually was a choice for him to make. Of course he would bring it back. It was for Maria. Gently, he reached out and touched the pig's nose, and a spark jumped from his fingertip to the pig, and the little guy opened his eyes, rolled over and sat up, and let out a little, "Bleh," which probably meant "Thank you for making me alive again."

Manolo giggled, reached out to pet the little buddy, before remembering himself and pulling his hand back with a gasp. "Sorry little guy, I can't pet you," Manolo apologized, crossing his arms over his chest tightly. "But I know someone who'll love you tons."

"Bleh," the little pig said. He liked the boy with the magic touch, and happily trotted along beside him while Manolo lead the way to where Maria was being chewed out by her father.

Now is a good time to mention that 30 seconds had passed since the pig had come back to life.

Over in the town square, Manolo and the little pig joined the small cluster of father, daughter and Joaquin. Maria was clutching a small red guitar– it was Manolo's, and he used to play it, but there would be no way to play it now, since it was broken. Manolo felt his heart break a little too, at the sight of his broken guitar, which was a gift from his dead-alive-again-dead-again mother.

40 seconds.

While Manolo waited at the sidelines, wanting to interrupt and say something heroic and helpful to get Maria out of trouble, the boar that Manolo had knocked unconscious was starting to stir.

General Posada told Maria of his decision to send her abroad, and Maria ran away crying, before Manolo could think to say anything to comfort her. The only thought he had was that he didn't want the girl he was in love with to be sent away for next to no reason.

50 seconds.

He voiced as much to his father when Carlos arrived. "He can't send Maria away!"

Carlos, who had been present in the stampede and had seen Manolo fight the boar had come to guide Manolo off to start his bullfighting training, which was tradition for Sanchez's, such as Manolo and Carlos, when a peculiar thing happened; the hypothetical clock which had been counting since the little pig came back to life hit 60.

And the hypothetical clock that had been ticking since the large, fierce boar had been nothing more than a small newborn wild pig hit zero.

The boar who had just woken from his unconscious state dropped dead to the ground, startling both Carlos and Manolo. Carlos let out a loud guffaw. "Well, mijo, looks like you gave that boar more of a beating than we thought, eh?" Manolo could only stare in horror at the boar.

You see, Manolo understood what his father did not in the way one does when they have an odd gift.

The facts were these:

The boar did not drop dead from his headlong run into the wall as Carlos thought, but it was partially Manolo's fault. This was the most important rule of the Touch of Life, or of Death, in this case. Whatever came to life by his hand must die the same way within a minute, or something else must die in its place. Such is the balancing act of life and death in nature. Manolo had never noticed this before as aside from his mother, the only things that lived and died from his touch had been plants or a bug or two. But Manolo knew that this was from his "gift".

We skip ahead to 4 days, 8 hours and 57 minutes. The town had gathered to say goodbye to the girl with whom both Manolo and Joaquin were in love. Maria was leaving for Spain, and Manolo desperately didn't want her to leave. There were still games to be played, songs to be sung, time to be spent together. But, Manolo knew there was nothing to do to keep Maria here, so he figured he could send a little bit of San Angel with Maria. That's why he had carefully and covered in multiple layers of clothing to avoid touching him packaged the small pig into cardboard box that he was now carrying and waiting to give to Maria. He gave her a pig and she gave him a replacement guitar and Joaquin chased the bonnet that blew off her head. Joaquin promised that when she came back he'd fight for her, and Manolo promised he would play for her.

And that was the last time the boys and Maria saw each other.

At least, for the next 10 years.


End file.
